


ambidextrous

by popsky



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsky/pseuds/popsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The shape meandering two halves of an unbound bird (when, in reality, just a really large shadow covering their tired eyes).</p>
            </blockquote>





	ambidextrous

**Author's Note:**

> Ambidextrous (1): able to use both hands with equal facility. Ambidextrous (2): unusually skillful; deceptive. Sinister: the left side. Spoilers up to chapter 49.

_ambidextrous_

 

-

When it comes to Erwin, memorizing is better than feeling.

He would probably say it was a good thing, though, and Levi just frowned away with _it’s your bad influence,_ feeling coffee turning sour in his mouth because this was the only time Erwin could miss an entire point. Then Erwin just sipped to his own cup, wrote something off-kilter and remarked trivial things to the window; _have you finished your reports,_ no; _have you eaten,_ no; _you should, Levi, caffeine is acidic and your stomach would turn sour –_ Levi already felt the words perforating into his gut.

Levi was sure his sensory nervous system was dysfunctional; though, just like Erwin’s selective mutism, his brain was specific to malfunction right when it was about the time to shut things down. A pat on his shoulder, a brush between their arms, the linger after reaching the same nape target: _it’s his hands,_ Levi gritted his teeth, and fought back the urge to twitch his own. Erwin had a tendency to raise his dominant arm when he was gesturing something important – a large, advancing motion – the fingertips sometimes reached past the empty air between them because, _god damn it,_ he stood at Erwin’s _right side_ like the second-in-command he was supposed to represent. Levi just glanced to the side in the position as the tactile-trained, combat-sensitive human he sometimes forgot he actually was.

(The touch spread and synapsed along his left side like wildfire; reaching closely over his heart and Levi drenched himself in the burned memory of Erwin’s right hand.)

He knew the skin like he remembered soaring. The sky was bright even before he knew how to fly – Levi used to squint because he moved better at dark and his daylights were limited to the space between his bangs. He had lifted his left arm to shield his face, liking the light tricks that seeped white glow between his fingerwebs. Levi refrained from reaching out to the nothingness above his world – just barely.

Someone in his left was doing the same.

Erwin had his right arm brushing Levi’s shoulder, fingers splayed to the side just like Levi’s own. He intertwined their thumbs and Levi wanted to hate him, wants to curse at how perfect the coincidental image was: their contrasted hands, spread digits to the sky like the crossed wings they could never truly own – the shape meandering two halves of an unbound bird (when, in reality, just a really large shadow covering their tired eyes). It was already sunset and he didn’t remember how long had they been standing, when the space between their knuckles stopped glowing white and bled into a generous red. Feelings waver but memories stay, Erwin once remarked; and Levi used to marvel how he and Erwin were standing under the same sky.

(Fun fact: he still does.)

Levi watched, silent because the tangy coffee was still unswallowed in his mouth while Erwin’s subservient hand tilted the cup slightly above his paperworks. His tea reached the brim, threatening dangerously to spill on their inked names, but Erwin kept it there at the last moment. Exhaling a shuddered breath, Levi reapplied his cravat back as if he just avoided a shattering hit to his bone legs.

The teacup clinked back on the saucer and their eyes met. “Your hands,” Erwin commented gently at the way Levi was ready to jump at the hypothetical mess, “are important. Don’t dirty them.”

Levi was half-tempted to move his own right fist for once, hitting right on his heart in a perfect salutation and see how Erwin would react. _  
_

“Yeah,” Levi said instead, pouring his coffee on the sink and thoroughly washed his hands. “I know.” Erwin reached his soaked palm to cover his fingers, curling them and resting both of their halved wings on the emblem of Levi's left breastpocket. Acceptance was their shared forte: Levi used to wonder when he had stopped squinting at the blue sky and, Erwin's eyes, Erwin's eyes,  _Erwin's eyes_  stopped searching why Levi looked so wonderful under their bleeding sky.

(Fun fact: they still do.)

-

-

-

 


End file.
